Professor Nirupam Bajpai, director of the South Asian programme at New York's Columbia University, says while Andhra Pradesh has done relatively better in the last ten years or so than some other Indian states, the growth and development is largely confined to Hyderabad, other major cities in the state and the high quality rice producing Coastal Andhra region.
"Urbanisation explains a major part of the growth story and that is not just true in Andhra Pradesh but in most Indian states," Professor Bajpai, who is also a senior development adviser at Columbia's Earth Institute, told rediff.com
"Most other parts of Andhra Pradesh are laggard regions too, not only Telangana," he points out.
"Since the late 1990s, the Andhra Pradesh leadership focused its attention on promoting the state, primarily Hyderabad, as a major platform for the ICT industry; the R&D sector, especially in the pharmaceutical industry and some industries in the manufacturing sector," he says.
"The state did vigorously promote the IT industry and was successful in attracting some major players in the IT sector, both from within India as well as abroad. While all these efforts led to rapid growth and development of Hyderabad, it did little for other regions of the state," adds Professor Bajpai.
Asked if small states are better manageable in terms of growth and development as has been contended by some experts, he replied in the negative.
"One can see that conditions in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh or Uttaranchal -- states that were carved out of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh respectively -- are no better today than they were in the pre-bifurcation period. What it has done, however, is add three more chief ministers, dozens of state ministers and create large bureaucracies," Professor Bajpai quipped.
"In my view, all that the division of states does is to create additional bureaucracies, more chief ministers and his/her council of ministers and a large and fast growing public administration system over time which consumes, to my mind, a huge amount of public resources which I'd rather spend on schools, health clinics, provision of clean drinking water, roads and so on."
"I do not subscribe to the view that smaller the size of the states will help them develop better or faster. I haven't come across any empirical evidence to show that the smaller size had led to better management or development," Professor Bajpai points out.
He adds that he is not at all in favour of the idea of entertaining any requests from any state for bifurcation. "Of course, the decision to go ahead with the division of Andhra Pradesh has lead to such requests which have been around for a number of years now, but none to my mind should be at the table in the first place."
While admitting that he is not very familiar with the specific Telangana issue, he adds, "I have my doubts if Andhra Pradesh can now remain undivided for long. The actual division may take time to come about, but it is very likely to happen."
Professor Bajpai, a macroeconomist by training, has been studying the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation, and globalisation. He has advised governments in India, both at the central and state levels.
Since June 2004, Professor Bajpai has been an advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and several ministries like health and family welfare. Earlier, between 1999 and 2004, he served as an economic advisor to then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and to several of his ministers, including the ministers of finance, commerce and industry, and information technology.
